When a body is infected with a virus, the immune system works to fight the infection. This fight could lead you to feel muscle inflammation and weakness — called myositis — or joint and muscle pain — called myalgia. Pain manifested in the joints is called arthralgia and is also commonly associated with a fever. The pain, redness, swelling, and heat that it produces is the body’s defense mechanism to fight off infectious agents like bacteria and repair tissue damage. Less obvious but similar in process is the inflammation that results from an infection like a cold, the flu, or COVID-19.
Acute vs. chronic inflammation: The U.S. flu season typically lasts from October to March, but flu is present year-round. Hallmarks of the flu include fever, muscle aches, and cough. Other potential symptoms include a sore throat, diarrhea, congestion, runny nose, chills, shivering, headache, fatigue, and loss of appetite. Flu symptoms differ from COVID-19 symptoms in that the flu usually does not cause shortness of breath.
NewsAll about how the flu works its way into your body: Influenza virus causes an infection in the respiratory tract or nose, throat, and lungs. The virus is inhaled or transmitted, usually via your fingers, to the mucous membranes of the mouth, nose, or eyes. It then travels down the respiratory tract and binds to epithelial cells lining the lung airways.
Influenza (flu) is an easily spread respiratory tract infection caused by a virus. Millions of people get the flu each year. The flu usually starts abruptly with fever, muscle aches, sore throat, and a cough. The flu can make people of any age sick, with most people being sick with the flu for only a few days.
Harvard Health on Cold & Flu: Every year, millions of Americans struggle with bouts of coughing, sneezing, sniffling, achiness, and fever caused by colds and flu. Though the two ailments share some symptoms, the severity varies. In general, colds are milder, while flu symptoms are more intense. For example, high fever and body aches are trademark symptoms of the flu.
This is why it’s so important for children to get a flu shot. Flu regularly ranks among the top 10 causes of death in the U.S. The CDC estimates that the flu has caused between 12,000 and 52,000 deaths each year between 2010 and 2020. The 2019-2020 flu season resulted in about 20,000 deaths and 380,000 hospitalizations.
People who have the flu often feel some or all of these symptoms: Fever or feeling feverish/chills, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches, fatigue. Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea, though this is more common in children than adults.
Harvard Health advises on when to contact your doctor about flu symptoms: Most adults contact their doctors when they feel really sick. However, this general advice doesn’t work very well for the flu. A lot of people think the flu is like the common cold, a minor and temporary illness. It’s not. Just getting the flu makes anyone feel really sick for a few days. You feel physically weak, you have no energy…
Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is a respiratory infection caused by an influenza virus. The flu virus enters your body when you breathe in air containing infected droplets, usually generated by someone else’s coughing or sneezing. Outbreaks occur nearly every winter and vary in severity depending on that year’s strain of the influenza virus.